PT-symmetry enabled spin circular photogalvanic effect in antiferromagnetic insulators

Abstract

The short timescale spin dynamics in antiferromagnets is an attractive feature from the standpoint of ultrafast spintronics. Yet generating highly polarized spin currents at room temperature remains a fundamental challenge for antiferromagnets. We propose a spin circular photogalvanic effect (spin-CPGE), in which circularly polarized light can produce a spin current without net charge current at room temperature, through an "injection-current-like" mechanism in parity-time(PT)-symmetric antiferromagnetic (AFM) insulators. We demonstrate this effect by first-principles simulations of bilayer CrI3 and room-temperature AFM hematite. Our calculations show that the spin-CPGE is significant, and the magnitude of spin photo-current is comparable with the widely observed charge photocurrent in ferroelectric materials. Interestingly, this spin photocurrent is not sensitive to spin-orbit interactions, which were regarded as fundamental mechanisms for generating spin current. Given the fast response of light-matter interactions, large energy scale, and insensitivity to spin-orbit interactions, our work gives hope to realizing a fast-dynamic and temperature-robust pure spin current in a wide range of PT-symmetric AFM materials, including weak-relativistic magnetic insulators and topological axion insulators.

arXiv comment18 pages, 4 figures

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• Contrasting Light-Induced Spin Torque in Antiferromagnetic and Altermagnetic Systems
• Crystal Symmetry Selected Pure Spin Photocurrent in Altermagnetic Insulators
• Large photogalvanic spin current by magnetic resonance in bilayer Cr trihalides
• Switchable Giant Bulk Photocurrents and Photo-spin-currents in Monolayer PT-symmetric Anti-ferromagnet MnPSe3
• Skin Effect of Nonlinear Optical Responses in Antiferromagnets
• Laser-induced charge and spin photocurrents at BiAg${}_2$ surface: a first principles benchmark
• Bulk Photovoltaic Effects in Helimagnets
• Nonlinear optics driven magnetism reorientation in semiconductors
• Manipulating Photogalvanic Effects in Two-Dimensional Multiferroic Breathing Kagome Materials
• Quantization of spin circular photogalvanic effect in altermagnetic Weyl semimetals
• Symmetry-driven Intrinsic Nonlinear Pure Spin Hall Effect
• Standard model of electromagnetism and chirality in crystals